


A Prayer For My Daughter

by elioliver



Series: The Yeatsian Catalogue [2]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types
Genre: Eleonora is back with a vengeance, F/F, Father-Daughter Relationship, First Fight, M/M, New York City, Regret, big ol fancy apartment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-05-05 15:52:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14622003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elioliver/pseuds/elioliver
Summary: New York City.Elio and Oliver have their first real fight after Elio receives a call from his daughter.





	1. The Great Gloom That Is In My Mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [berryknots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/berryknots/gifts).



> This late addition is dedicated to @berryknots, who left a comment-request on "Cloths of Heaven," requesting a drabble in this Yeats-inspired universe. And who am I to say no to that?

**New York City, May 2011**

“Excuse-moi?”

Oliver was leaning down to straighten a plant in the doorway of their now shared apartment over the trattoria, a spindly violet orchid that he’d purchased almost out of pity from a flower stall near campus. Elio had been on the phone with Nora for going on an hour, mainly listening to the soothing sounds of her French on speakerphone while he reclined in a low-backed, whiskey brown leather sofa that was anchored to the wall opposite the well-loved Steinway parlor grand. Nora had been in France for three months, undertaking an internship with a music magazine that was published in Paris—the interviewers had marvelled at her near-perfect grasp of both French and English, and they promptly put her to work translating pieces for their new Anglophone website, occasionally sending her out to cover a small concert. Oliver had never seen Elio so proud of any person in his life, which made the fact that Elio had just shouted into the receiver of the telephone more than alarming. Oliver turned and straightened himself quickly, noticing immediately that the phone was no longer on speaker, and Elio was pacing back and forth across the hardwood floor.

Oliver had been halfheartedly trying to learn French ever since they’d moved in together, sometimes picking up on the acerbic sparring that occurred over breakfast between Elio and his daughter. They typically only spoke French in front of Oliver when they were arguing, and Oliver knew that it meant more than anything to Elio to spend one hour a week chatting with his only child in the language they shared, the literal _langue maternelle_ for the both of them; Oliver was reeling, trying to comprehend what could have made Elio so incensed during his favorite time of the week. He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to translate Elio’s rushed words back into English.

“Je ne comprends jamais? Toi et moi, nous savons que je comprends! Je comprends mieux que tout le monde! Je suis ton père, je suis l’homme qui t’a donné les conseils dont tu as eu besoin—non, c’est complètement différente, tu le sais!”

Oliver’s head was spinning. _I never understand? We both know that I understand! I understand better than everyone. I am your father, I am the man who gave you the advice that you needed. No, that’s entirely different, you know it!_ Elio had paused briefly to let Nora talk, but he was soon projecting back into the curve of the phone.

“Écoute-moi, Eleonora, mon Dieu! Bien sur, tu l’aimes, mais ce n’est pas droit! Je ne vais pas tolérer-ça!”

 _Listen to me, Nora, my God! Of course, you love her, but it’s not right! I am not going to stand for it_ . Oliver winced at the mixture of venom and terror that had been infused into Elio’s voice. This was beginning to get uglier than he had anticipated, and he could only watch, dismayed, as Elio curled his toes around their worn out Oriental rug and proverbially dug his heels in over the long-distance call. He paused for a much longer time, and Oliver could see that his resolve was visibly softening. “Ma chèrie,” Elio said, his voice painfully fraught. “Je veux le meilleur pour toi seulement.” _My darling, I want only the best for you._ There were tears in his eyes, and Oliver had to fight the urge to cross the distance between them and hold him tightly. Oliver closed their front door softly behind him and leaned anxiously against the kitchen bar, discerning that the end of the conversation was looming.

As the silence on Elio’s end dragged on, his features slowly began to harden again, and soon he was whispering harshly over the line. “Ferme-la.” Then, moments later: “Ne dis pas ça. C’est la fin de notre discussion.” There was a very brief silence before Elio concluded the call with his eyes overcast with anger. “Oliver et Narcisse n’ont pas la même personne.” Elio took a very deep breath. “Je t’aime, nous parlerons plus tard.” _Shut it. Do not say that. End of discussion. Oliver and Narcisse are not the same person. I love you, we’ll speak later._ Elio hung up rather forcefully, and Oliver felt relieved that he hadn’t flung the phone across the room. Elio collapsed on the couch in a heap, but before Oliver had a chance to comfort him, he was up again, moving to the seat of the piano bench and angrily banged out a few bars of Prokofiev before tiring himself out and letting his head fall against the top of the instrument. Oliver moved away from the doorway.

“Elio,” Oliver whispered across the space. “ _Pesca_ , what’s wrong?” Elio picked his head up from where it rest against the black enamel fall board. He shook his head, looking entirely drained of energy, his cheeks damp with salt water. “I’m not angry with her,” he said helplessly, his gaze resting tiredly on Oliver. “She thinks I’m angry, I could never be angry with her.”

Oliver let his fingers trace over the piano’s freshly dusted lid, propped open and catching the daylight that flooded in through the windows. He looked down at Elio curiously before stooping to sit beside him on the piano bench. “You were shouting over the phone,” he replied, one hand dropping to Elio’s thigh while another relaxed along the edge of the bench below. Elio gritted his teeth. “I wasn’t shouting,” he murmured, leaning back and straining his neck as he peered up at the ceiling. Oliver raised an eyebrow. “What is this about, anyway?” he asked.

Elio shook his head impatiently. “It’s not worth explaining,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “It’s too hard to explain.” Oliver found himself standing again and he leaned at the piano’s edge. “I’m listening,” Oliver promised, his heart thrumming anxiously in his chest. Elio stood from the piano’s bench and circumvented the wide instrument, ushering himself down the hall to their office. Oliver, blinking incredulously, followed him, calling his name and pleading with him to stop. Elio pushed the office door open unceremoniously, but he didn’t shut it behind him, which Oliver knew was an invitation to come in and wait for him to start talking.

The office was a converted bedroom space that no one seemed to know the original purpose of. It was oddly narrow, only eight feet in length, but spanning the entirety of the apartment’s thirty-something feet in width. Elio had nestled a vertical piano against wall and placed a rather clunky keyboard corner-to-corner, perpendicular with it. By doing this, he had created a tiny space for himself, a three-walled area where he could sit beneath a window and turn back and forth between instruments while perched on his somewhat squeaky rotating stool. At the other end of the narrow corridor, there were two desks pushed together beneath another window that looked out over Bondesan; it was the very window, Oliver realized upon receiving the initial tour of the home, that Nora had dropped keys out of on the day he had walked all the way downtown in search of the apartment. Between the desks and the dual pianos, there were several bogged-down bookshelves lining the wall. Oliver moved over to the far wall, leaning against a dog-eared copy of _L’Assommoir_ , which Elio had clearly only just returned to the shelf that morning.

Oliver stood in office for nearly a half-hour, watching Elio halfheartedly fiddle with a new composition before he was finally able to speak. Oliver listened as he told him everything: the tumultuous move from Lyon to Paris when Nora was still an adolescent; the new school she had started at upon arrival, the mourning she was still working through, the adapting to a new city, a city where she had never been without her mother; how after a year or so, things seemed to feel normal again; the afternoon when Elio and Nora sat side by side at a café and chose between two schools where Nora could attend _lycée_ ; the day Elio toured the two wide, low buildings and courtyard that made up the small campus with his daughter; the first day that Nora mentioned making a new friend; the only time Elio had met her, Narcisse, and how he’d thought it was the most lovely thing to have ever happened; the day that Nora came home in tears and they spoke about Oliver and Nora cried in Elio’s arms for an evening; the week she spent recovering; the day that Nora returned home in tears again because Narcisse had officially moved on, her fingers intertwined with someone else’s in the hallway; the months it had taken after that, the mood swings Nora had, the way she seemed to linger in her room for hours instead of joining her friends on a weekend.

“And then she calls me today and announces that _Narcisse_ ,” there was a certain level of disgust in the way he pronounced her name, “has returned to Paris for work! That she’s practically been _living_ in Nora’s apartment,” Oliver thought he saw Elio twitch in agitation, which terrified him. “Despite, of course, the fact that Nora will be leaving Paris in mere months to finish graduate school _here_.” Elio was fuming.

“And, of course, I told her to do whatever, you know, she’s an adult! _Fais ce que tu veux_ , I said, and all of the sudden that isn’t enough for her, suddenly I need to stamp my one hundred percent approval on this doomed relationship, and obviously I can’t do that,” Elio cried, gesticulating wildly. Oliver blinked in confusion, trying to keep up. “So she says to me, my own daughter, she says, ‘Well it isn’t as if you have any place to talk!’ That’s what she said to me! In Italian, no less! Which means, of course, that Narcisse was in the goddamn _room_ , and she said that in a foreign fucking language so Narcisse couldn’t tell we were arguing, so of course I spoke to her in French, because I won’t change the way I speak to my own daughter just so Narcisse doesn’t overhear that I think she’s untrustworthy and terrible and undeserving of my daughter’s love and become offended!” Oliver’s mouth dropped open a little, and he clamped it shut, his palm slamming against his chin while his eyes widened uncontrollably.

“And then she’s going on and on, so upset that I’m not thrilled for her, and I’m telling her, ‘Norie, I want the best for you, I want you to be happy, but I cannot get on board with this!’ And then, my God, she suddenly decides to compare Narcisse to you! To you! My _albicocca_ , and that is insane! I can’t stand for that, you know? And she won’t drop it now, so I just told her, whatever, we can talk later, because it’s… I don’t know. It certainly _feels_ fucking disrespectful. I don’t know,” Elio finishes, finally petering out from his place on the spinning stool between his pianos.

Oliver pushed himself off of the bookshelves, which had been beginning to leave a mark on his arm anyway, and moved closer to Elio. “Elio, I’m sorry,” he said, hesitating. “But didn’t you compare us when you told her about me all those years ago? The situations are pretty similar, are they not?” Elio looked up at him like he was an alien from the outer reaches of space. “No, Oliver,” he said tightly. “They are not.” Oliver cocked his head.

“Elio--”

“Oliver. I know you think yourself to be the Oscar Wilde to my Alfred Douglas, but just stop. The situations aren’t the same. They just aren’t.” Oliver’s eyes practically shot off of his forehead. _I’d never think you as philistine as Alfred Douglas_ , he thought of saying, but he held his tongue. “Did I not leave as Narcisse did? Were you not as wrecked as Nora? Did we not--”

“Please stop. I’m asking you to stop. I don’t want to talk about that.”

“We never did talk about it. Maybe we should,” Oliver offered. They’d been back together for three years now, and they’d touched on it time and time again, but they never really discussed it. Oliver had no idea what Elio had really felt in the aftermath, and vice versa. Oliver could still remember the endless waves of guilt, of heartbreak, of lust, of homesickness. Homesickness for the villa, for the Perlmans, for Elio. Homesickness for a summer he wanted to return to and thrive in forever. Elio always declined to share when it came up. “We’re alive and one again now,” he would say. “What is the point of ripping open old wounds?”

Today was no different. “We’ve never talked about it because it’s over. That part of our life is over. What’s the point in discussing it?” he asked, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back into the window. “That part of our life isn’t over, Elio, that’s the point,” Oliver chastised. “You’re letting your reluctance to revisit our past keep you from supporting your daughter. If you refuse to acknowledge the time we spent apart, then you’re refusing to acknowledge the time you spent with her! The time when you shared what happened between us! You cannot--”

“Oliver.”

“Shut her out just because it’s easy. She deserves better than that! And I deserve worse! I’m exactly like Narcisse, and there isn’t anything wrong in Nora pointing it out. You have to be that dad that she needs right now, the one that she deser--”

“Oliver!”

Oliver stopped, never having realized that both his and Elio’s voices had been rising and rising and rising. Never having realized that Elio was now looking at him with the most offended expression he’d ever seen. “Oliver,” Elio grimaced, shaking his head. “You are not my wife. You are not Nora’s father. You won’t even, you won’t,” now Elio was practically shaking, looking as if he were on the verge of tears. “You won’t even agree to marry me. So you need to stop now, before we actually have a real fight.”

 _This is a real fight, Elio_ , Oliver wanted to say, but instead he closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing in and out. “Why are you bringing this up now? What does our hypothetical marriage have to do with anything?” Oliver queried, but Elio was silent, already enthralled by the keys of the piano again, as if there were something ethereal about them. Oliver cleared his throat. Still no response. “What did your father say when I returned to Italy?”

Elio’s head shot up as if propelled by an otherworldly force of nature. Oliver wasn’t sure what to expect in response, though part of him predicted another shouting match; _how dare you bring my father into this, this is completely irrelevant, why are you so intent on telling me how to parent my own child_. But Elio said nothing. He opened his mouth and closed it again, several times in succession, and then he stood up.

“Do you want to know what my father said?” Elio asked. The question was clearly rhetorical, because he was off again before Oliver had the chance to offer an emphatic affirmative. “He said, ‘I’ve told you before that embracing pain is the only way to cure it. Now I remind you to never forget what you have gone through. Forgive it, but never forget it. If you love him, and he loves you, then you will trust that what you have can put the old pain to sleep. But don’t throw it away. It has made you into yourself. It’s something to be proud of.’”

Oliver felt tears threatening to spill. “Why couldn’t you say that to Nora?” he wondered aloud, looking across the room at a stricken Elio.

“I’m not my father,” he replied uneasily. “I don’t know.”


	2. I Have Walked and Prayed For This Young Child

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading & leaving the kindest comments.
> 
> cheers,  
> elioliver

Two Hanukkahs prior, Oliver had given Elio a bluetooth speaker for the kitchen. “Now you can listen to whatever you want while you cook,” Oliver said, and Elio had taken the promise to heart. Elio loved anything old, classical albums and records from the eighties and early nineties. Oliver tried to convince him to enjoy new music, but Elio turned up his nose. Sufjan Stevens was too drowsy; Leon Bridges was unoriginal; Lady Gaga was brash; rock bands were loud, and indie musicians were boring or grating or some combination thereof. Elio would stay in the kitchen for hours at a time, listening to songs at top volume and making fresh pasta. The Human League could inescapably flood the apartment at ungodly decibels, Oliver locked in the study with earplugs and a book, and still Elio would’ve cranked it louder if he could.

It was under such circumstances that Nora managed to unlock the front door, bring in her suitcase, mutter a string of obscenities under her breath, and retire to her room one Friday afternoon at the end of August. She wondered absentmindedly if she could get away with taking a shower without being heard, but decided it wasn’t worth the risk. She wasn’t in the mood to discuss things with her father, with whom she’d never really needed to discuss things before, and she had somewhere to be anyway. She applied dry shampoo to her post-international flight hair and changed from jeans and a t-shirt into a swing dress that she’d been gifted while in Paris. She glared at the slim collection of shoes she’d left in New York and settled on heeled boots, knowing that no one in the house would be able to hear the inevitable clicking against the floor over the music.

Slipping out of the apartment was perhaps even easier than her entrance, given that there was no suitcase to haul over the threshold. She applied lipstick in the mirror that hung lopsided in the stairwell and swung the security door open after tucking her keys into a hidden pocket. The street was surprisingly empty, the sun gliding westward and the sky beginning to darken. Nora  walked past the trattoria and placed a light hand on the shoulder of a nearby pedestrian, who turned with a wide grin on her face.

Narcisse was gorgeous. Her stature was nearly identical to Nora’s, though Cissy had raven hair and dark skin, lips carved by Aphrodite and eyes that sparkled without compare. “Hello,” she said gently, pulling Nora against her and pecking her on the nose. “ _Ma fille parfaite_.”

Nora laughed, slightly embarrassed by the mild display of affection, and grabbed the other woman’s hand. “Did you get settled at your brother’s?” Nora asked, shuffling forward so that Narcisse was leaning against a telephone pole. Cissy nodded and glanced over at the setting sun, the sky swirling from navy to fuchsia and lavender, night creeping towards them. “We should go ahead and go,” she said softly. “We’re wasting moments.” Nora shook her head and inched closer. “I don’t know if I’d call it ‘wasting,’ exactly,” she replied. She leaned forward and pressed their lips together in the middle of the empty sidewalk, suddenly void of all troubles in the world.

From up above them, Oliver looked out of the open window in silence, his book having been cast aside for an hour now as he’d watched the traffic roll by. He leaned back and shut the window quietly. Elio’s music had stopped and he could hear the sound of dishes clattering in the sink, then a spray of water from the faucet. Had Nora really come and gone without saying hello? Oliver didn’t even know she would be back this soon. He turned off the lamp in the study and shut the door behind him, easing down the hallway cautiously. Elio had his back to him, rinsing a pot in the sink on the opposite wall. Oliver approached him quietly, wrapping his arms around him and resting his chin on Elio’s head.

Elio dropped the pot into the sink and leaned back into Oliver’s embrace. He twisted in his arms and peered up at the blond before him, smiling that lazy summer evening smile that took him back in time. Oliver took a step back and swallowed. “Elio… I think Nora is home.” Elio raised an eyebrow and gripped at the sink behind him. “What do you mean? Is she at the airport?”

Oliver shook his head. “I… Well, I saw her outside. Through the study window. I think she may have dropped off her luggage in the stairwell or something, it looked like she came inside and left again, but I never heard her,” Oliver explained. Elio’s face contorted with worry and he strode to the apartment door and unlocked it before looking outside at the empty landing and the bare staircase. He turned on his heels and went to Nora’s room, flipping the lightswitch and gawking at the large suitcase and overstuffed backpack that littered the floor. He pivoted and looked at Oliver with his mouth agape. “I don’t get it. When was she here? How did I not notice?”

With concern all over his face, Oliver shrugged helplessly. “I saw her leave a few minutes ago, and it wasn’t until then that I was certain it was her. She must’ve come in when you were listening to music, Elio.”

Elio turned off the light and shut the door with a sigh. “I knew… I knew she might still be upset with me, but I didn’t expect her to turn up in a cab and not say hello,” Elio whispered. He buried his face in his hands for moment and leaned against the wall. Oliver awkwardly took a step closer and cleared his throat. “Elio, I should warn you, she also wasn’t alone. There was a girl waiting for her downstairs. They… kissed.”

Elio’s hands dropped to his sides. “Narcisse?” he asked tiredly. Oliver shook his head and sighed. “I don’t know, Elio. I didn’t know the girl.” Elio crossed the living space and anxiously poured himself three fingers of Armagnac from the bar cart. He took a swig and dropped himself onto the couch. “A little older than Nora, dark hair. Pretty, Pakistani girl? Looks like someone I harbor an intense grudge against,” Elio said sardonically, glaring up at Oliver until he sat down next to him on the couch. Oliver reached over and pulled the brandy from Elio’s hand, draining the tumbler and setting it at his feet.

“Elio,” Oliver began, pulling the younger man back into his chest. “I love you more than anything on earth, but Nora is a close second. We’ve got to work through this now, baby. Or it’s going to blow up in everyone’s face now that Narcisse is here. Okay?”

Elio gave in to Oliver’s hands around his arms and fell back in exhaustion. “You don’t have kids, Oliver. You cannot imagine how angry the thought of this girl makes me. I have no clue how my father put up with you when you returned. No clue.” Elio turned and pressed his cheek into Oliver’s thin button-down. Oliver traced his fingers up and down Elio’s arms and kissed the top of his head. “I’m not sure how he managed that either,” Oliver murmured.

The whir of the ceiling fan above them was increasing in volume, and Oliver pulled the quilt from the couch and draped it over Elio, who was about two seconds from visibly shivering. It was silent for a moment, until Oliver felt dampness soaking into his shirt. “Elio,” Oliver whispered, sliding fingers through Elio’s dark curls. “Why are you crying, _pesca_ ?” he asked, rubbing Elio’s back slowly. “You’re too goddamn perfect,” Elio muttered. Oliver sat up and lifted Elio’s chin to look him in the eyes. “That’s not true, Elio.” He wiped away tears with the pad of his thumb and kissed his eyelids softly. “I am _not_ perfect,” he clarified between kisses. Elio shook his head and settled himself beneath Oliver’s chin.

“I want to be supportive. I want to. But I’m—I’m scared. When you left me…” Elio trailed off, more tears welling in his eyes. Oliver pulled him closer and leaned in. _Say it, Elio. Just say it_.

“When the train pulled away, it felt like there was this anvil on my chest. I loved you so much. So much. I didn’t understand until you were gone. And if I’d known, I wouldn’t—I couldn’t, I would not have been physically able to let go of you.” Elio swallowed. “It weighed on me. And when you called me,” he continued, tears streaming down his face. “It was like that anvil was lifted away, up into the sky. It felt so good to hear your voice. You were real, you know? It was real, and you remembered. But when you told me you were getting married, the anvil crashed down on me again, and this time it was like I couldn’t breathe. I was suffocating to death until you kissed me underneath that tree. Even when we saw each other again, I was terrified. I’m still terrified. And what we had, it framed everything that happened to me afterwards. I couldn’t live without you, so I thought about you constantly. It… it ruined my marriage and any other relationship I could’ve had. I can’t let it happen to my little girl. She’s too good, Oliver, she’s too good!”

Now Elio was sobbing against his chest, Oliver holding him tightly with tears in his eyes. Oliver reached for the tissues from the coffee table and tucked them behind Elio’s frame. “Elio,” Oliver said softly. “Elly, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” Oliver muttered into the curls atop his head. They reclined on the couch as the sun disappeared from view, Oliver turning so that Elio could lean back against his chest while they watched the sky fade to black.

“Elio,” Oliver whispered in the quiet darkness, a half-lit Tiffany lamp the only source of light in the room. “No one expects… no one could ever expect you to be your father. You’re just different people, and I know you know that your dad was one-of-a-kind. Your feelings about me and about Narcisse… I won’t pretend they aren’t valid. And you don’t have to forgive Narcisse. But you have to let Nora live her life. The same way Sam let you live yours.”

“Call him dad, Oliver. He always wanted you to call him dad.”

“The way dad let you live yours, then.”

Silence lingered for moment before Elio shifted again. “I know. I know I have to let Nora be,” he said, his eyeline pinned to the ceiling fan blades that whirred overhead. “She’s so perfect, Oliver. If Marzia were still here…,” he trailed off, eyes falling shut. Oliver lifted a hand and ran his fingers softly through Elio’s hair. “What if Marzia were still here?” Oliver asked. Elio sighed.

“She would say, ‘ _Regarde notre fille. Ses yeux sont belles, mais son regard fixe est forte. Sa bouche est mignonne, mais ses mots sont impressionnants. Elle est notre fille, mais elle appartient à elle seule_ ,” Elio replied dreamily, as if he had to yank the old saying from a cloudy bank of memories.

Oliver followed along the best he could. Look at our girl, Marzia would have said. Her eyes are beautiful, but her gaze is strong. Her mouth is lovely, but her words are formidable. She is our girl, but she belongs only to herself. “Yes,” Oliver said. “She does.”


End file.
